Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s02e10 Episode Script
Lifetime of Healing
I had two children born into the Sea Organization.
When they say what a rotten father I was, they're right.
I was a Sea Org.
father.
In most of the episodes that we've seen, um, it's been me, sitting there, and Mike, sitting there, listening to stories that we weren't part of, personally, but in tonight's episode, I am personally involved.
When I first met Leah, I was 12 years old.
We locked eyes and became instant best friends.
When I met Leah, I was about 15.
I was really timid and shy and she did most of the talking.
We were, like, in this surreal environment, but trying to be normal kids, in a way.
We parented each other.
We looked out for each other.
We would not have survived without each other.
These are my friends.
And we did experience Scientology together, as children.
But what's still hard for me to swallow is that I was one of the people that we do stories about.
I was guilty of disconnecting from my own friend because of Scientology policy.
And it's not something that I've really come to terms with yet.
I still have a lot of emotion and guilt.
It's just more evidence that, here we are, adults with our own children, and we're still living the effects of Scientology policy and what it does to people.
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a mental condition, uh, where he him can solve his own problems.
Without any Scientology organization things are not gonna change on this planet.
After years of slowly questioning Scientology Leah Remini and her very public break with Scientology Stop lying to people that they hold their eternity in their hands.
Stop telling parents that it doesn't matter what you do this lifetime other than Scientology.
If your religion is so amazing and doing all these amazing things for the world, then it should stand up to some questioning.
I would repeat this line, "I want to die.
I want to die".
That was my first idea of: I want to end my own life.
You gave me up at 13 years old.
How could you think that this was okay for me? These people are doing extreme things, and they need to be held accountable.
For us to do more of this, we wanted to do something that could help these people.
We need to do more than simply document stuff.
You got this.
People will continue to speak.
People will continue to fight.
Hello.
- Sher? - Yeah? - Look how cute it look - Hello.
Look how beautiful! You look beautiful, as always.
- Thank you.
- Gorgeous.
- Hi, Sherry.
- Hi, Mike.
So nice to meet you.
My name is Sherry Ollins, and I was born into Scientology.
And I was in Scientology for 21 years.
- Hi, Chantal.
- Hi, Mike.
So nice to see you.
I'm sorry.
- Oh, Chantal - It's okay.
Why are you crying, baby? She hasn't seen him in, like, 24 years.
It's been 24 years, and it's kind of like when you have a history of senior management stuff together, so Yeah.
I didn't know how I would feel.
My name is Chantal Dodson.
I was in the Sea Org from the time I was 7 years old to 23.
Leah and I grew up together, with a, you know, group of friends that we had, and then we reconnected when she left the church.
We all have a common reality, growing up in the Sea Org and Scientology, but we have such different experiences about how we all got in.
- Yeah.
- Well, for me, it's all I've ever known.
You know, I was born into it.
My mom was introduced to it by her first husband.
And so she sort of embraced it, and threw herself into it.
So it was in Washington D.
C was a terrible area, at the time, and my mother worked, you know, till midnight every night.
I just didn't see my mother very much.
I was at the church nursery and I just didn't have a lot of contact with her.
So for a few years, early on, that was my experience, just not having my mom.
And then, later on, she and my stepfather were in charge of the nursery for the Org.
So all of the people, all of the parents who are working till midnight every night, their kids were at this nursery and I was caring for them.
So I was basically working as long as I can remember.
From what age, Sherry? Four.
I was taking care of other children.
I mean, I was a very unhappy child because I worked all the time.
I didn't have the experience that other kids had and I wore thrift store clothes and lived in poverty, we had no heat, we had no phone, we had no TV, we had no birthdays or Christmas.
And I knew in my heart, like, this is not right.
You know, like, I would babysit for other people for free because I would get to see a different kind of life and something that was more normal.
I just remember it being a very Hard existence.
You know, I was allowed to walk to school because the adults in my life were so busy going up the Bridge.
I was seven years old, and I was walking and a man came up and took me by the hand.
He took me into an alley and he molested me.
And I told my mom and my stepdad what happened.
So they called the police and I you know, I gave a description of this man and I told them what happened, but my mom's reaction, as with all of her reactions, was Scientology.
She did some Scientology auditing and processing on me, and it just felt so inappropriate.
It was very scientific and matter-of-fact, and it just wasn't what I needed.
I do think that that was a pivotal moment in my life where I just went internal, and just realized I had to just take care of myself.
In my situation, my parents were in Hawaii.
They got divorced, and my mom became a Scientologist and married my stepfather.
And my mom decided, when I was about seven, and my sister was six, that she was gonna join the Sea Org.
And we went from living in a five-bedroom house in Hawaii Kai, living in paradise, to now we're at Flag.
And we are in dorms.
And my parents are in their own berthing.
And told that we're now in the Cadet Org, and we were the maids for the guests, - the public that would come.
- The paying public.
- Yeah.
- The paying public.
Yes.
So there was a specific situation that happened where my sister was defiant and wanted to see my mom.
And she refused to not see her, threw a fit, and ended up on the "Children's RPF".
The Children's RPF was based on the same concept as the adult's RPF, in fact, it wasn't really any different.
You're not allowed to talk to anybody outside of the RPF.
You eat the leftover food that the other Sea Org members didn't consume.
It's a very harsh environment that is intended to be uncomfortable, uh, unpleasant, and to teach you a lesson.
And for children in the Cadet Org, that was the same concept "We are going to punish you until you reform".
There was also different living conditions.
- What was that? - It was the parking structure.
- Of the Fort Harrison Hotel? - Yep.
Third floor.
Seven years old.
In a sleeping bag.
And I wasn't allowed to see her, or my mom, at the time, and she wasn't allowed to see my mom, at the time.
And it just became extremely real to me that we are in an extremely dangerous situation.
The abdication of responsibility as a parent, to turn over your children to the Sea Organization, is probably the thing that I regret the most about the entire time I had been in Scientology.
And it's so ironic now that they put my children on videos saying, "What a rotten dad.
He was such a bad father".
You know what? They're right.
I wasn't anybody's father.
I was a Sea Org member.
I'm just someone else who's on a post.
My daughter could have ended up being my boss, and I would've had to call her "sir".
That's the dynamic that happens in the Sea Organization with families.
It it there is no family.
As Scientologists, and especially Sea Org members, we're completely indoctrinated that it is only about the group.
You are there to be a group member and only a group member in the Sea Org.
Well, the same goes for Scientology.
- Yeah.
- You know, you visit Scientology websites today, like, right this second, you will see what it says about how Scientology views children and family.
And that Scientology enhances their relationship, brings them closer together.
The building block of society.
Yes, but that's not true.
And, not even talking about the Sea org, just talking about Scientologists in general, it's the same mentality.
So shortly after this situation happened, my mom and my stepfather got transferred to L.
A.
And we went to L.
A.
And then, what happened was, I get recruited to be a messenger on duty, which means that you're going to actually get transferred to work with LRH.
So in this process, I am told that I was hand-chosen by LRH to be groomed as a messenger on duty.
So now I was now the golden child.
- Right.
- You know, and my parents were very proud of me, and now I'm being looked at different, at ten years old.
So, Sherry, how did you come to the Sea Org? At around 11 years old, recruiters from New York came down to D.
C.
and it was this young couple.
They were very good-looking, and they were part of the Commodore's Messenger Org and I just remember being in a room with my mother and they were talking about the Sea Org and how important it was and how you were gonna help save the world.
But I think, for me They said to me, you know, "We'll be your guardians," meaning they would be my parents in the Sea Org and look after me.
So here I have, like, this extremely unhappy, you know, existence, living in poverty, working all the time, versus going to New York and being cared for by this beautiful couple.
And what I realized was, that was really attractive to me.
Like you know, like, the idea of, like, having, like, parents, like, was sorry.
Oh, crap.
They made it seem like it would be a better life.
And my mother thought it was a good idea.
And everyone thought my brother was a rock star for going, And so I said, "Yes, of course, I'll go".
They said the right things, which were, "We're gonna be your guardians, and we're gonna, you know, take care of you".
So I think maybe a week later, I took a train from D.
C.
to New York, via Union Station.
I remember arriving in New York and looking up and just being shocked at New York.
One time I was supposed to have an executive's child ready before she was gonna go out and he wasn't ready in time 'cause he wasn't cooperating, and I just remember her her screaming at me and my friend, and cursing at us from the first floor, and we were on the seventh floor.
And, you know, while I had suffered neglect, um, I had never had anyone scream at me And curse at me.
And so that was, like, the first moment that I was like, "This is not what I thought it was gonna be".
I remember seeing you for the first time at the New York Org, but I remember thinking, "She's important".
Like, you had some kind of importance that you were walking around with.
- And when I saw you - Yeah? You looked like early '80s New York, shoulder pads, gold chains, feathered hair.
To me, you looked like the life that I wished that I would have.
- Right.
- So I saw you, and I saw the opposite.
I was like, "That's w what I would like to be".
And I saw you, thinking, "That's what I would like to be important".
"'Cause I'm just a girl from Brooklyn "with shoulder pads and rope chain necklaces and I'm not doing shit".
But I think that has, partly to do with your mom.
- Yeah.
- Because your mom treated me so nicely and was so impressed by me because I was a Sea Org member, and probably conveyed that to you.
- Yes.
- But at the same time, you know, from a very early age, I'm not sure I bought into everything.
And I kept getting into trouble.
So, like, if I would tell a friend, "You know, I don't like how they make us iron the shirts," or whatever it might have been, they would write up a report on me.
Because you knew there were reprimands to everybody was part of this culture of knowledge reports because Scientology a lot of Scientology is based on narcing on each other and writing internal reports.
You know, when wives write reports on husbands, when mothers write reports on children When children write reports on their parents - Yeah.
- You lose all trust in any relationship.
It's impossible.
- Totally.
- And I had to be comfortable with being truly alone.
This idea of isolating you is one of the things that prevents people from leaving, because you have nowhere to go.
- Right.
- It's just a tool that conspires to make it, in your mind, - that you're in prison.
- Yes.
I go to Clearwater, and I'm officially posted in an administrative role.
And you are living in a dorm? Yes.
I got there in '83.
So, like, I had been there a little bit before you, and then I remember, Leah walks in, again, shoulder pads, gold chains, perfume, feathered hair, and I'm like, "La!" And it was like instant best friends.
- Yeah.
- And then we lived in that one little room together.
- Right.
- And I remember, there were, like, flying cockroaches, and like, it sometimes, like, the bathtub would overflow and we'd actually have tadpoles In our bathroom.
Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember, like, walking on the carpet and squishing there was squishing 'cause it was wet.
And we would jump like, we would jump from try to jump from our bed so we didn't touch the floor.
And then we would turn the lights on to let the roaches scatter before we started walking to go to the bathroom.
I think what I realized is that - you just learn to - Adapt.
Adapt.
You learn to adapt to these conditions.
We did our things.
Like, we would get back from working and it was, what, 11:00, 12:00 at night, and we'd go into the lobby and break dance, and - we were just kind of, like - we were trying to be kids.
We were trying to be kids.
At least you guys had some, like, child-like kind of qualities about you still.
Well, we we stole it - We stole it back.
- We stole those moments.
Yeah, because we'd get in trouble for those things, but we'd continue to do them.
My relationship with Leah was very different because it felt honest.
I felt like I could be authentic.
So I think it was the first relationship where I could truly share with another human being Anything I was feeling, and not have a report written up on me, you know, or get in trouble.
When I finally got up the guts to leave, you know, I had been in the Sea Org for a little over four years with no family.
- And Leah had left.
- After a year.
Right, you had left after a year.
I think it was very empowering, my relationship with Leah.
You know, she was sort of a force to be reckoned with.
By the time I reached 15, and maybe partially through my relationship with Leah, and seeing her, sort of strength, um, I found my backbone and I stuck to how I felt, and I said, "I want to leave.
"I don't want to be in the Sea Org anymore.
I want to go home".
And they screamed at me and they yelled at me and they sent me to the galley to do, you know, the dishes and humiliated me.
And I just kept to it, and then they finally let me leave, and I went back home to D.
C.
I got home and quickly realized I was a big disappointment in my family.
You know, I had left the Sea Org, I said things that were negative about the Sea Org, and that wasn't received well.
So this was another clear example that there was not really a place for me there.
And here I was, the black sheep.
And so Leah's like, "Sherry, you need to come to California".
And I was like, "Okay!" And then you got yourself your own apartment, and you started doing well, and, like, being self-sufficient.
Well, we all helped each other.
You know, it was like that's what I find kind of amazing, like, all these 15, 16, 17-year-olds that had no parenting to speak of, we all got each other jobs at various times, lent each other money when we couldn't make the rent.
You know, Leah would be like, "Come on, Sherry, were gonna get our work permits".
You know? Or, you know, like, The funny thing about you, Leah, is you just wanted me to always do whatever you did, so if you were gonna be an actress, you wanted me to go to acting class and take photo shoots.
You know, if you think of 15-year-old girls on their own in Los Angeles, that's a scary thought, right? But we weren't on our own.
We had each other.
We had a group.
We parented each other.
We looked out for each other.
We would not have survived without each other.
There was a concentrated group of children who were abandoned.
They were either in the Sea Org or kicked out by their Sea Org parents, and we all were in this one area around PAC, and that was the area that all of us connected.
All these kids were just kind of just trying to make it.
- Yes.
- Trying to eat.
One of them was my stepbrother.
My stepbrother, Shane, was kicked out in his early teens, um, because he did not want to do Scientology.
And that is the Scientology mentality.
That it's well, you're not on board, you know, you gotta get out.
So where are you living? I don't know.
Don't care.
That is what my mother thought.
That is what my stepfather thought.
And they had to sit in a therapy session and hear the pain of my stepbrother.
And when he went through his story about that he almost died because he was homeless, my stepfather his father was crying and said, "I didn't know".
And the therapist rightly looked at him and said, "Why didn't you know? He was your child".
And I saw the pain of my mother, and I saw the pain of my stepfather hitting them for the first time of what they had done to a child, and it hadn't really hit them until this moment, this year, that they had done that.
And I and I imagine that most Scientologist parents, or most parents of this kind of extremist thinking, cannot deal with the pain of what they've done to their child.
I was being groomed from the time I was 10 to 14 years old to work with LRH.
But it never happened.
So it was about the time when we all went to the Palladium in 1986 and found out that LRH had dropped his body, and that was the end for me, as far as wanting to stay.
And then that's when I said, "I'm done.
I'm done.
I'm gonna go and leave the Sea Org".
But it took me a long time, months and months and months, over a year before they let me leave.
And then they let me leave, and it was really hard on my own.
You left at what age? I left at 16, and um, where did I go? I went to Sherry's apartment.
I asked Sherry if I could stay on her couch, and she said, "Yeah".
She had an apartment on Edgemont.
She helped me get a job.
That's right.
I remember that now.
And then you helped me get the apartment above the Thai food restaurant.
And then I met somebody who wanted to go back into the Sea Org and I bought that hook, line, and sinker, and went back in the Sea Org when I was 18.
The reason I went back into the Sea Org is, honestly because, it was all I knew and it was really, really hard being out.
You have no purpose.
You have no education.
You have no money.
You don't know what you're going to do.
And I was with somebody, and actually married somebody who actually wanted to join the Sea Org.
And so I made the decision to go back.
You know, the idea was that we were gonna have kids.
And you always wanted to be a mom.
I always wanted to be a mom.
When I left the second time, it was because I wanted children and you can't have children in the Sea Org they changed the rule, and I wanted children so badly.
And my husband at the time said, "I'm not gonna leave with you," so I left.
And it was really hard.
And I had to go figure out a life, at 23.
You're still a Scientologist.
I, personally, wanted to be in good standings, with the hope that I would have a relationship with my my mom.
So you have children.
You're living your life.
You're a Scientologist in good standing, and then what happens? I raised my children I did not want them to ever know about Scientology.
I did not ever want them to know the truth of who I was.
Uh, I didn't want them to know I wanted them to be normal.
I just wanted a normal life.
I didn't ever want my children to be approached to join the Sea Org or pressured into Scientology.
'Cause I couldn't I just didn't I didn't want anything that happened to me to happen to them.
One day, I got a phone call about 13 or 14 years ago, and it was from my mother.
And basically says that she has some medical conditions and she's no longer qualified to remain in the Sea Org.
We got her health insurance immediately, and we got all of her stuff taken care of Not just stuff.
Didn't she have, like, a triple bypass or Yeah, she had a seven-way bypass.
She was diabetic.
She was in very poor condition.
She was crippled, her hands, her neck, from arthritis, and when I picked her up, they had her washing pots and pans in the galley as a punishment.
And then six months later, I had my stepfather on my porch.
So then we got them somewhat established in a job and this and that.
How compassionate that you took your family in after they were not a family to you.
Yeah.
To this day, my parents are still active Scientologists.
And I don't think either one of them really understand what we've been through.
Let me explain a relationship to you with people who are in Scientology maybe not in the Sea Org but still in Scientology and their sons and daughters and friends who are not in Scientology at all.
Your relationships are tenuous, right, so it's okay for you not to be a Scientologist, kind of, but if you speak out against Scientology, then my decision's made.
So Ramina might have had somewhat of a relationship with her daughters and her grandkids, but it was always kind of predicated on the fact of, "If you speak out, then there is zero relationship".
From the time I got out here to California to the time I officially stated I wasn't a Scientologist, I think that many of my friends knew where I stood.
You know, there were some people who were actively involved in, like, pursuing courses and going up the bridge.
That was not me.
Once I sort of broke away from the crowd and started reading books and going to college and being with people that weren't Scientologists, I think that was, like, my real break.
I would say that was 21 and on, that was my real break.
It was a big step, and I actually said the words out loud, "I'm not a Scientologist anymore".
And even then, a lot of my friends continued friendships with me.
Leah continued a friendship with me, and my other friends did as well.
It was sort of like, "Don't ask, don't tell".
As long as I didn't bring it up, they felt safe, and they could continue on in their Scientology career and I could continue on doing my thing.
And that worked for a while.
You were, like, evolving.
Of the whole group, you were the only one who was getting an education.
You were the only one who was taking care of people.
Like, you were setting an example of how not to be a Scientologist.
And you ended up taking your brother in After he left the Sea Org.
Yeah, he showed up on my doorstep at this house.
Tanja Castle says over the years, she was pressured by church officials to disconnect from Stefan and end their marriage.
Well, first discouraged and then not allowed to communicate with each other or see each other or you know, be a married couple.
Tanja Castle says the still married couple defied those orders, staying in touch by cell phone.
But Tanja says when David Miscavige found out in the summer of 2004, she was demoted, their cell phones were taken away, and Tanja was sent to live in near isolation in a remote corner of Scientology's sprawling international base near Hemet.
She was a celebrity.
I thought maybe she would have some influence.
My brother was desperate.
You wanted me to meet with Stefan, and he was talking about getting his wife out, who was up in Riverside.
And he had tried to get my help, which I thought was insane, 'cause I was like, "What am I gonna do? "Like, I don't I'm gonna get in trouble for even sitting here and talking to you".
But it I ended up saying to you that we're done, that you even put me in that position.
Because we had for so long had an agreement, and I had been telling the church, "She's fine.
No, she hasn't tried to have me read anything.
"She's not even anti-Scientology.
She's just kind of, like, living her life".
You know, I was always trying to, like, hide the fact of how you really felt 'cause I didn't want to have to disconnect from you.
And you know, I got up, and I walked out, and I was on the side of the church.
And I was so naive to put you in that position.
For everything that I knew No, Sherry.
No, no, no, I was.
No, at the time that I was brainwashed and totally indoctrinated and on board with Scientology, you did the right thing.
I mean, looking back on it, here was somebody who was up at the international management base saying these things are going on, and I'm saying you're nuts.
Looking back on it now, you know, she was doing what I'm doing now.
Sherry was doing what I'm doing now with this show, going, "Hey, world, wake up.
Can somebody do something about it?" And I'm sitting there at the lunch thinking, "My friend's insane.
The brother's insane.
The wife's insane.
And they're all lying".
I just didn't look.
I didn't look.
I failed everything that I supposedly represent, you know, in that moment.
I didn't stand by my friend.
It still gets me But, Leah, I didn't know the pressure you were under all the time we even remained friends.
I had no idea you were having to defend me.
I should have known.
I mean, that's the naive part of me.
- Well, no, I wouldn't tell you.
- Right.
Because then it would be bad for the church - Right.
- To tell my friend.
'Cause I was secretly trying to get you back.
And I was like, "I have a plan.
"You know, she's just gonna see how great I am.
"And then eventually she's gonna say, 'Hey, I want back in'".
You know what I mean? And I was thinking the opposite, like, "She's gonna see how great it is on the outside".
But it's funny that we all had kind of the same idea about, like, we wanted to be normal.
Because of my brother leaving, because of the situation, she disconnected from me.
And we didn't speak for ten years.
We lose ten years of each other's lives.
She had two children that I wasn't there for.
It's not easy to look at Sherry every day now, see her kids at the age that they are now, and know that I lost all that time.
But we have now.
We all reconnected when Chantal got sick.
Right.
And you're in the hospital.
Well, 31/2 years ago, I got a bowel obstruction that ended up, uh, turning into gangrene, and I ended up having septic shock.
And they gave me a 0% chance of living.
And of course, I wasn't conscious.
But What was the first thing you thought when you woke up? I I looked at I looked at my my sister, and I said, "What what did I do to pull this in?" And she said, "You didn't do anything, Chantal.
It just happened".
In Scientology, there is a concept that you fully responsible for everything that happens to you and that no matter what it is that you have done something to cause whatever is going on in your life, good, bad, or indifferent, and every Scientologist will explain to you the idea that you pulled it in.
Here she was, totally disconnected from the world of Scientology, for all intents and purposes, but she still thought the first thought she thought was what Scientology taught her.
It just shows you how how much damage how much damage this kind of thinking does.
Sherry called me and said, you know, "Chantal is in the hospital, and she would like to hear from you".
And then from that moment on, when you were better, we started getting together pretty regularly, and we would try we would try to get together, have some wine, talking about girl stuff, but we always ended up talking about Scientology because we realized how truly damaged we are still from it and that we need this more than we think, and I find that with Scientologists, you know, all the time.
The healing could take a lifetime.
Chantal, myself, Leah, and many of our other friends, you know, we're survivors.
You know, we didn't choose this life.
We made the best of this life.
Even though, like, Leah and I have had our breaks, she is my longest relationship in life.
- Mine too.
- You know? And it's interesting that, like, Leah's more family to me and Chantal than my own family.
Scientology takes away, you know, what you're supposed to go through as a normal human being and who you're supposed to attach to.
Right.
Well, it takes away your empathy, Sherry.
You know, look at our kids now.
We just want them to grow up to be good people who care about their fellow man, and there are kids out there, there are people worthwhile in the world that and they're not Scientologists.
I knew that there was a risk doing this interview, that my parents would disconnect from me because they are still active Scientologists.
But I decided, "You know what? I'm done hiding.
"I'm done These are my friends, "and these are the people that have gotten me to the point I am now and make me a stronger person".
This is my way of taking back my truth and saying, "This is my life.
You can't dictate what I can say or what I do anymore".
They've taken all of these things that we've talked about from me.
They took my childhood.
They took your childhood.
I was telling Mike how proud I am of what you've accomplished in your life, considering where you came from.
You know what I mean? Like, that you put yourself through school.
You bought this house.
You have two beautiful children.
And the same with you.
You built a whole business and a whole life for yourself.
You have kids going to college, and, I mean, considering what we've come from Yeah, we definitely had the odds stacked against us.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, for sure.
With Scientologists leaving Scientology or the Sea Org, they have to know you have to start to acknowledge the pain and the abuses that you've been through, and then you have to start to heal.
And you need to heal by talking to people who know what you've been through.
Thank you, pumpkin.
There's something about people knowing exactly what you've been through.
Yeah, don't - I'm so glad to see you.
- You too.
There's something about that that is healing.
We wanted to talk about what's been happening since season one.
It's incredibly isolating to leave everybody you've ever known.
There's no reason to believe that our kids will ever see their grandparents again.
You are the first person who was willing to take a stand from watching the show.
There's no way of going out of this without being shamed.
To have someone recover their family, that's all I do this show for.
I caused horrible things to my children to happen.
How could they be considered a church?
When they say what a rotten father I was, they're right.
I was a Sea Org.
father.
In most of the episodes that we've seen, um, it's been me, sitting there, and Mike, sitting there, listening to stories that we weren't part of, personally, but in tonight's episode, I am personally involved.
When I first met Leah, I was 12 years old.
We locked eyes and became instant best friends.
When I met Leah, I was about 15.
I was really timid and shy and she did most of the talking.
We were, like, in this surreal environment, but trying to be normal kids, in a way.
We parented each other.
We looked out for each other.
We would not have survived without each other.
These are my friends.
And we did experience Scientology together, as children.
But what's still hard for me to swallow is that I was one of the people that we do stories about.
I was guilty of disconnecting from my own friend because of Scientology policy.
And it's not something that I've really come to terms with yet.
I still have a lot of emotion and guilt.
It's just more evidence that, here we are, adults with our own children, and we're still living the effects of Scientology policy and what it does to people.
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a mental condition, uh, where he him can solve his own problems.
Without any Scientology organization things are not gonna change on this planet.
After years of slowly questioning Scientology Leah Remini and her very public break with Scientology Stop lying to people that they hold their eternity in their hands.
Stop telling parents that it doesn't matter what you do this lifetime other than Scientology.
If your religion is so amazing and doing all these amazing things for the world, then it should stand up to some questioning.
I would repeat this line, "I want to die.
I want to die".
That was my first idea of: I want to end my own life.
You gave me up at 13 years old.
How could you think that this was okay for me? These people are doing extreme things, and they need to be held accountable.
For us to do more of this, we wanted to do something that could help these people.
We need to do more than simply document stuff.
You got this.
People will continue to speak.
People will continue to fight.
Hello.
- Sher? - Yeah? - Look how cute it look - Hello.
Look how beautiful! You look beautiful, as always.
- Thank you.
- Gorgeous.
- Hi, Sherry.
- Hi, Mike.
So nice to meet you.
My name is Sherry Ollins, and I was born into Scientology.
And I was in Scientology for 21 years.
- Hi, Chantal.
- Hi, Mike.
So nice to see you.
I'm sorry.
- Oh, Chantal - It's okay.
Why are you crying, baby? She hasn't seen him in, like, 24 years.
It's been 24 years, and it's kind of like when you have a history of senior management stuff together, so Yeah.
I didn't know how I would feel.
My name is Chantal Dodson.
I was in the Sea Org from the time I was 7 years old to 23.
Leah and I grew up together, with a, you know, group of friends that we had, and then we reconnected when she left the church.
We all have a common reality, growing up in the Sea Org and Scientology, but we have such different experiences about how we all got in.
- Yeah.
- Well, for me, it's all I've ever known.
You know, I was born into it.
My mom was introduced to it by her first husband.
And so she sort of embraced it, and threw herself into it.
So it was in Washington D.
C was a terrible area, at the time, and my mother worked, you know, till midnight every night.
I just didn't see my mother very much.
I was at the church nursery and I just didn't have a lot of contact with her.
So for a few years, early on, that was my experience, just not having my mom.
And then, later on, she and my stepfather were in charge of the nursery for the Org.
So all of the people, all of the parents who are working till midnight every night, their kids were at this nursery and I was caring for them.
So I was basically working as long as I can remember.
From what age, Sherry? Four.
I was taking care of other children.
I mean, I was a very unhappy child because I worked all the time.
I didn't have the experience that other kids had and I wore thrift store clothes and lived in poverty, we had no heat, we had no phone, we had no TV, we had no birthdays or Christmas.
And I knew in my heart, like, this is not right.
You know, like, I would babysit for other people for free because I would get to see a different kind of life and something that was more normal.
I just remember it being a very Hard existence.
You know, I was allowed to walk to school because the adults in my life were so busy going up the Bridge.
I was seven years old, and I was walking and a man came up and took me by the hand.
He took me into an alley and he molested me.
And I told my mom and my stepdad what happened.
So they called the police and I you know, I gave a description of this man and I told them what happened, but my mom's reaction, as with all of her reactions, was Scientology.
She did some Scientology auditing and processing on me, and it just felt so inappropriate.
It was very scientific and matter-of-fact, and it just wasn't what I needed.
I do think that that was a pivotal moment in my life where I just went internal, and just realized I had to just take care of myself.
In my situation, my parents were in Hawaii.
They got divorced, and my mom became a Scientologist and married my stepfather.
And my mom decided, when I was about seven, and my sister was six, that she was gonna join the Sea Org.
And we went from living in a five-bedroom house in Hawaii Kai, living in paradise, to now we're at Flag.
And we are in dorms.
And my parents are in their own berthing.
And told that we're now in the Cadet Org, and we were the maids for the guests, - the public that would come.
- The paying public.
- Yeah.
- The paying public.
Yes.
So there was a specific situation that happened where my sister was defiant and wanted to see my mom.
And she refused to not see her, threw a fit, and ended up on the "Children's RPF".
The Children's RPF was based on the same concept as the adult's RPF, in fact, it wasn't really any different.
You're not allowed to talk to anybody outside of the RPF.
You eat the leftover food that the other Sea Org members didn't consume.
It's a very harsh environment that is intended to be uncomfortable, uh, unpleasant, and to teach you a lesson.
And for children in the Cadet Org, that was the same concept "We are going to punish you until you reform".
There was also different living conditions.
- What was that? - It was the parking structure.
- Of the Fort Harrison Hotel? - Yep.
Third floor.
Seven years old.
In a sleeping bag.
And I wasn't allowed to see her, or my mom, at the time, and she wasn't allowed to see my mom, at the time.
And it just became extremely real to me that we are in an extremely dangerous situation.
The abdication of responsibility as a parent, to turn over your children to the Sea Organization, is probably the thing that I regret the most about the entire time I had been in Scientology.
And it's so ironic now that they put my children on videos saying, "What a rotten dad.
He was such a bad father".
You know what? They're right.
I wasn't anybody's father.
I was a Sea Org member.
I'm just someone else who's on a post.
My daughter could have ended up being my boss, and I would've had to call her "sir".
That's the dynamic that happens in the Sea Organization with families.
It it there is no family.
As Scientologists, and especially Sea Org members, we're completely indoctrinated that it is only about the group.
You are there to be a group member and only a group member in the Sea Org.
Well, the same goes for Scientology.
- Yeah.
- You know, you visit Scientology websites today, like, right this second, you will see what it says about how Scientology views children and family.
And that Scientology enhances their relationship, brings them closer together.
The building block of society.
Yes, but that's not true.
And, not even talking about the Sea org, just talking about Scientologists in general, it's the same mentality.
So shortly after this situation happened, my mom and my stepfather got transferred to L.
A.
And we went to L.
A.
And then, what happened was, I get recruited to be a messenger on duty, which means that you're going to actually get transferred to work with LRH.
So in this process, I am told that I was hand-chosen by LRH to be groomed as a messenger on duty.
So now I was now the golden child.
- Right.
- You know, and my parents were very proud of me, and now I'm being looked at different, at ten years old.
So, Sherry, how did you come to the Sea Org? At around 11 years old, recruiters from New York came down to D.
C.
and it was this young couple.
They were very good-looking, and they were part of the Commodore's Messenger Org and I just remember being in a room with my mother and they were talking about the Sea Org and how important it was and how you were gonna help save the world.
But I think, for me They said to me, you know, "We'll be your guardians," meaning they would be my parents in the Sea Org and look after me.
So here I have, like, this extremely unhappy, you know, existence, living in poverty, working all the time, versus going to New York and being cared for by this beautiful couple.
And what I realized was, that was really attractive to me.
Like you know, like, the idea of, like, having, like, parents, like, was sorry.
Oh, crap.
They made it seem like it would be a better life.
And my mother thought it was a good idea.
And everyone thought my brother was a rock star for going, And so I said, "Yes, of course, I'll go".
They said the right things, which were, "We're gonna be your guardians, and we're gonna, you know, take care of you".
So I think maybe a week later, I took a train from D.
C.
to New York, via Union Station.
I remember arriving in New York and looking up and just being shocked at New York.
One time I was supposed to have an executive's child ready before she was gonna go out and he wasn't ready in time 'cause he wasn't cooperating, and I just remember her her screaming at me and my friend, and cursing at us from the first floor, and we were on the seventh floor.
And, you know, while I had suffered neglect, um, I had never had anyone scream at me And curse at me.
And so that was, like, the first moment that I was like, "This is not what I thought it was gonna be".
I remember seeing you for the first time at the New York Org, but I remember thinking, "She's important".
Like, you had some kind of importance that you were walking around with.
- And when I saw you - Yeah? You looked like early '80s New York, shoulder pads, gold chains, feathered hair.
To me, you looked like the life that I wished that I would have.
- Right.
- So I saw you, and I saw the opposite.
I was like, "That's w what I would like to be".
And I saw you, thinking, "That's what I would like to be important".
"'Cause I'm just a girl from Brooklyn "with shoulder pads and rope chain necklaces and I'm not doing shit".
But I think that has, partly to do with your mom.
- Yeah.
- Because your mom treated me so nicely and was so impressed by me because I was a Sea Org member, and probably conveyed that to you.
- Yes.
- But at the same time, you know, from a very early age, I'm not sure I bought into everything.
And I kept getting into trouble.
So, like, if I would tell a friend, "You know, I don't like how they make us iron the shirts," or whatever it might have been, they would write up a report on me.
Because you knew there were reprimands to everybody was part of this culture of knowledge reports because Scientology a lot of Scientology is based on narcing on each other and writing internal reports.
You know, when wives write reports on husbands, when mothers write reports on children When children write reports on their parents - Yeah.
- You lose all trust in any relationship.
It's impossible.
- Totally.
- And I had to be comfortable with being truly alone.
This idea of isolating you is one of the things that prevents people from leaving, because you have nowhere to go.
- Right.
- It's just a tool that conspires to make it, in your mind, - that you're in prison.
- Yes.
I go to Clearwater, and I'm officially posted in an administrative role.
And you are living in a dorm? Yes.
I got there in '83.
So, like, I had been there a little bit before you, and then I remember, Leah walks in, again, shoulder pads, gold chains, perfume, feathered hair, and I'm like, "La!" And it was like instant best friends.
- Yeah.
- And then we lived in that one little room together.
- Right.
- And I remember, there were, like, flying cockroaches, and like, it sometimes, like, the bathtub would overflow and we'd actually have tadpoles In our bathroom.
Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember, like, walking on the carpet and squishing there was squishing 'cause it was wet.
And we would jump like, we would jump from try to jump from our bed so we didn't touch the floor.
And then we would turn the lights on to let the roaches scatter before we started walking to go to the bathroom.
I think what I realized is that - you just learn to - Adapt.
Adapt.
You learn to adapt to these conditions.
We did our things.
Like, we would get back from working and it was, what, 11:00, 12:00 at night, and we'd go into the lobby and break dance, and - we were just kind of, like - we were trying to be kids.
We were trying to be kids.
At least you guys had some, like, child-like kind of qualities about you still.
Well, we we stole it - We stole it back.
- We stole those moments.
Yeah, because we'd get in trouble for those things, but we'd continue to do them.
My relationship with Leah was very different because it felt honest.
I felt like I could be authentic.
So I think it was the first relationship where I could truly share with another human being Anything I was feeling, and not have a report written up on me, you know, or get in trouble.
When I finally got up the guts to leave, you know, I had been in the Sea Org for a little over four years with no family.
- And Leah had left.
- After a year.
Right, you had left after a year.
I think it was very empowering, my relationship with Leah.
You know, she was sort of a force to be reckoned with.
By the time I reached 15, and maybe partially through my relationship with Leah, and seeing her, sort of strength, um, I found my backbone and I stuck to how I felt, and I said, "I want to leave.
"I don't want to be in the Sea Org anymore.
I want to go home".
And they screamed at me and they yelled at me and they sent me to the galley to do, you know, the dishes and humiliated me.
And I just kept to it, and then they finally let me leave, and I went back home to D.
C.
I got home and quickly realized I was a big disappointment in my family.
You know, I had left the Sea Org, I said things that were negative about the Sea Org, and that wasn't received well.
So this was another clear example that there was not really a place for me there.
And here I was, the black sheep.
And so Leah's like, "Sherry, you need to come to California".
And I was like, "Okay!" And then you got yourself your own apartment, and you started doing well, and, like, being self-sufficient.
Well, we all helped each other.
You know, it was like that's what I find kind of amazing, like, all these 15, 16, 17-year-olds that had no parenting to speak of, we all got each other jobs at various times, lent each other money when we couldn't make the rent.
You know, Leah would be like, "Come on, Sherry, were gonna get our work permits".
You know? Or, you know, like, The funny thing about you, Leah, is you just wanted me to always do whatever you did, so if you were gonna be an actress, you wanted me to go to acting class and take photo shoots.
You know, if you think of 15-year-old girls on their own in Los Angeles, that's a scary thought, right? But we weren't on our own.
We had each other.
We had a group.
We parented each other.
We looked out for each other.
We would not have survived without each other.
There was a concentrated group of children who were abandoned.
They were either in the Sea Org or kicked out by their Sea Org parents, and we all were in this one area around PAC, and that was the area that all of us connected.
All these kids were just kind of just trying to make it.
- Yes.
- Trying to eat.
One of them was my stepbrother.
My stepbrother, Shane, was kicked out in his early teens, um, because he did not want to do Scientology.
And that is the Scientology mentality.
That it's well, you're not on board, you know, you gotta get out.
So where are you living? I don't know.
Don't care.
That is what my mother thought.
That is what my stepfather thought.
And they had to sit in a therapy session and hear the pain of my stepbrother.
And when he went through his story about that he almost died because he was homeless, my stepfather his father was crying and said, "I didn't know".
And the therapist rightly looked at him and said, "Why didn't you know? He was your child".
And I saw the pain of my mother, and I saw the pain of my stepfather hitting them for the first time of what they had done to a child, and it hadn't really hit them until this moment, this year, that they had done that.
And I and I imagine that most Scientologist parents, or most parents of this kind of extremist thinking, cannot deal with the pain of what they've done to their child.
I was being groomed from the time I was 10 to 14 years old to work with LRH.
But it never happened.
So it was about the time when we all went to the Palladium in 1986 and found out that LRH had dropped his body, and that was the end for me, as far as wanting to stay.
And then that's when I said, "I'm done.
I'm done.
I'm gonna go and leave the Sea Org".
But it took me a long time, months and months and months, over a year before they let me leave.
And then they let me leave, and it was really hard on my own.
You left at what age? I left at 16, and um, where did I go? I went to Sherry's apartment.
I asked Sherry if I could stay on her couch, and she said, "Yeah".
She had an apartment on Edgemont.
She helped me get a job.
That's right.
I remember that now.
And then you helped me get the apartment above the Thai food restaurant.
And then I met somebody who wanted to go back into the Sea Org and I bought that hook, line, and sinker, and went back in the Sea Org when I was 18.
The reason I went back into the Sea Org is, honestly because, it was all I knew and it was really, really hard being out.
You have no purpose.
You have no education.
You have no money.
You don't know what you're going to do.
And I was with somebody, and actually married somebody who actually wanted to join the Sea Org.
And so I made the decision to go back.
You know, the idea was that we were gonna have kids.
And you always wanted to be a mom.
I always wanted to be a mom.
When I left the second time, it was because I wanted children and you can't have children in the Sea Org they changed the rule, and I wanted children so badly.
And my husband at the time said, "I'm not gonna leave with you," so I left.
And it was really hard.
And I had to go figure out a life, at 23.
You're still a Scientologist.
I, personally, wanted to be in good standings, with the hope that I would have a relationship with my my mom.
So you have children.
You're living your life.
You're a Scientologist in good standing, and then what happens? I raised my children I did not want them to ever know about Scientology.
I did not ever want them to know the truth of who I was.
Uh, I didn't want them to know I wanted them to be normal.
I just wanted a normal life.
I didn't ever want my children to be approached to join the Sea Org or pressured into Scientology.
'Cause I couldn't I just didn't I didn't want anything that happened to me to happen to them.
One day, I got a phone call about 13 or 14 years ago, and it was from my mother.
And basically says that she has some medical conditions and she's no longer qualified to remain in the Sea Org.
We got her health insurance immediately, and we got all of her stuff taken care of Not just stuff.
Didn't she have, like, a triple bypass or Yeah, she had a seven-way bypass.
She was diabetic.
She was in very poor condition.
She was crippled, her hands, her neck, from arthritis, and when I picked her up, they had her washing pots and pans in the galley as a punishment.
And then six months later, I had my stepfather on my porch.
So then we got them somewhat established in a job and this and that.
How compassionate that you took your family in after they were not a family to you.
Yeah.
To this day, my parents are still active Scientologists.
And I don't think either one of them really understand what we've been through.
Let me explain a relationship to you with people who are in Scientology maybe not in the Sea Org but still in Scientology and their sons and daughters and friends who are not in Scientology at all.
Your relationships are tenuous, right, so it's okay for you not to be a Scientologist, kind of, but if you speak out against Scientology, then my decision's made.
So Ramina might have had somewhat of a relationship with her daughters and her grandkids, but it was always kind of predicated on the fact of, "If you speak out, then there is zero relationship".
From the time I got out here to California to the time I officially stated I wasn't a Scientologist, I think that many of my friends knew where I stood.
You know, there were some people who were actively involved in, like, pursuing courses and going up the bridge.
That was not me.
Once I sort of broke away from the crowd and started reading books and going to college and being with people that weren't Scientologists, I think that was, like, my real break.
I would say that was 21 and on, that was my real break.
It was a big step, and I actually said the words out loud, "I'm not a Scientologist anymore".
And even then, a lot of my friends continued friendships with me.
Leah continued a friendship with me, and my other friends did as well.
It was sort of like, "Don't ask, don't tell".
As long as I didn't bring it up, they felt safe, and they could continue on in their Scientology career and I could continue on doing my thing.
And that worked for a while.
You were, like, evolving.
Of the whole group, you were the only one who was getting an education.
You were the only one who was taking care of people.
Like, you were setting an example of how not to be a Scientologist.
And you ended up taking your brother in After he left the Sea Org.
Yeah, he showed up on my doorstep at this house.
Tanja Castle says over the years, she was pressured by church officials to disconnect from Stefan and end their marriage.
Well, first discouraged and then not allowed to communicate with each other or see each other or you know, be a married couple.
Tanja Castle says the still married couple defied those orders, staying in touch by cell phone.
But Tanja says when David Miscavige found out in the summer of 2004, she was demoted, their cell phones were taken away, and Tanja was sent to live in near isolation in a remote corner of Scientology's sprawling international base near Hemet.
She was a celebrity.
I thought maybe she would have some influence.
My brother was desperate.
You wanted me to meet with Stefan, and he was talking about getting his wife out, who was up in Riverside.
And he had tried to get my help, which I thought was insane, 'cause I was like, "What am I gonna do? "Like, I don't I'm gonna get in trouble for even sitting here and talking to you".
But it I ended up saying to you that we're done, that you even put me in that position.
Because we had for so long had an agreement, and I had been telling the church, "She's fine.
No, she hasn't tried to have me read anything.
"She's not even anti-Scientology.
She's just kind of, like, living her life".
You know, I was always trying to, like, hide the fact of how you really felt 'cause I didn't want to have to disconnect from you.
And you know, I got up, and I walked out, and I was on the side of the church.
And I was so naive to put you in that position.
For everything that I knew No, Sherry.
No, no, no, I was.
No, at the time that I was brainwashed and totally indoctrinated and on board with Scientology, you did the right thing.
I mean, looking back on it, here was somebody who was up at the international management base saying these things are going on, and I'm saying you're nuts.
Looking back on it now, you know, she was doing what I'm doing now.
Sherry was doing what I'm doing now with this show, going, "Hey, world, wake up.
Can somebody do something about it?" And I'm sitting there at the lunch thinking, "My friend's insane.
The brother's insane.
The wife's insane.
And they're all lying".
I just didn't look.
I didn't look.
I failed everything that I supposedly represent, you know, in that moment.
I didn't stand by my friend.
It still gets me But, Leah, I didn't know the pressure you were under all the time we even remained friends.
I had no idea you were having to defend me.
I should have known.
I mean, that's the naive part of me.
- Well, no, I wouldn't tell you.
- Right.
Because then it would be bad for the church - Right.
- To tell my friend.
'Cause I was secretly trying to get you back.
And I was like, "I have a plan.
"You know, she's just gonna see how great I am.
"And then eventually she's gonna say, 'Hey, I want back in'".
You know what I mean? And I was thinking the opposite, like, "She's gonna see how great it is on the outside".
But it's funny that we all had kind of the same idea about, like, we wanted to be normal.
Because of my brother leaving, because of the situation, she disconnected from me.
And we didn't speak for ten years.
We lose ten years of each other's lives.
She had two children that I wasn't there for.
It's not easy to look at Sherry every day now, see her kids at the age that they are now, and know that I lost all that time.
But we have now.
We all reconnected when Chantal got sick.
Right.
And you're in the hospital.
Well, 31/2 years ago, I got a bowel obstruction that ended up, uh, turning into gangrene, and I ended up having septic shock.
And they gave me a 0% chance of living.
And of course, I wasn't conscious.
But What was the first thing you thought when you woke up? I I looked at I looked at my my sister, and I said, "What what did I do to pull this in?" And she said, "You didn't do anything, Chantal.
It just happened".
In Scientology, there is a concept that you fully responsible for everything that happens to you and that no matter what it is that you have done something to cause whatever is going on in your life, good, bad, or indifferent, and every Scientologist will explain to you the idea that you pulled it in.
Here she was, totally disconnected from the world of Scientology, for all intents and purposes, but she still thought the first thought she thought was what Scientology taught her.
It just shows you how how much damage how much damage this kind of thinking does.
Sherry called me and said, you know, "Chantal is in the hospital, and she would like to hear from you".
And then from that moment on, when you were better, we started getting together pretty regularly, and we would try we would try to get together, have some wine, talking about girl stuff, but we always ended up talking about Scientology because we realized how truly damaged we are still from it and that we need this more than we think, and I find that with Scientologists, you know, all the time.
The healing could take a lifetime.
Chantal, myself, Leah, and many of our other friends, you know, we're survivors.
You know, we didn't choose this life.
We made the best of this life.
Even though, like, Leah and I have had our breaks, she is my longest relationship in life.
- Mine too.
- You know? And it's interesting that, like, Leah's more family to me and Chantal than my own family.
Scientology takes away, you know, what you're supposed to go through as a normal human being and who you're supposed to attach to.
Right.
Well, it takes away your empathy, Sherry.
You know, look at our kids now.
We just want them to grow up to be good people who care about their fellow man, and there are kids out there, there are people worthwhile in the world that and they're not Scientologists.
I knew that there was a risk doing this interview, that my parents would disconnect from me because they are still active Scientologists.
But I decided, "You know what? I'm done hiding.
"I'm done These are my friends, "and these are the people that have gotten me to the point I am now and make me a stronger person".
This is my way of taking back my truth and saying, "This is my life.
You can't dictate what I can say or what I do anymore".
They've taken all of these things that we've talked about from me.
They took my childhood.
They took your childhood.
I was telling Mike how proud I am of what you've accomplished in your life, considering where you came from.
You know what I mean? Like, that you put yourself through school.
You bought this house.
You have two beautiful children.
And the same with you.
You built a whole business and a whole life for yourself.
You have kids going to college, and, I mean, considering what we've come from Yeah, we definitely had the odds stacked against us.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, for sure.
With Scientologists leaving Scientology or the Sea Org, they have to know you have to start to acknowledge the pain and the abuses that you've been through, and then you have to start to heal.
And you need to heal by talking to people who know what you've been through.
Thank you, pumpkin.
There's something about people knowing exactly what you've been through.
Yeah, don't - I'm so glad to see you.
- You too.
There's something about that that is healing.
We wanted to talk about what's been happening since season one.
It's incredibly isolating to leave everybody you've ever known.
There's no reason to believe that our kids will ever see their grandparents again.
You are the first person who was willing to take a stand from watching the show.
There's no way of going out of this without being shamed.
To have someone recover their family, that's all I do this show for.
I caused horrible things to my children to happen.
How could they be considered a church?